Enslaved Sequel Isn't Happening

[jackanderson]

As somebody who bought the Collector's Edition of Enslaved (for the same price as buying the game normally, I got a soundtrack CD and an Alex Garland novel (and a bloody good one, I might add!)) and really enjoyed the entire game (so much so that, if I'd bought it last year, I'd have made it one of my favourite games of the year) and really enjoyed the ending (I actually spent the entire week wondering if Trip had done the right thing); allow me to say this...

GOOD.

Enslaved was a perfectly great and entertaining game that worked perfectly fine on its own and had wrapped up very nicely by itself. It's done. Ended. Over. Finished. It worked because it never, ever, not even at the last second, spelt any of its story beats out to the player. You simply got it by the subtleties of the story telling (like how Trip and Monkey's FRIENDSHIP was the backbone of the story. NOT THEIR POSSIBLE ROMANCE, BECAUSE THERE ISN'T ONE!).

To make a sequel would mean having to actually resolve the ending, take the characters further than they have to and shoe-horn in a romance between Trip and Monkey that WASN'T THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE!!

Not every single film, or book, or TV show, or game, or album, or YouTube video, or Breville Toaster needs a sequel! What is so hard for people to understand about this? I'm glad that they're focusing on DMC right now (which I'm witholding judgement on until I actually play it. I have faith in Ninja Theory) and hope the thought of an Enslaved sequel never crosses their minds ever again.

Although it was nice to see Lindsey Shaw getting work.

/rant.

 

[Soxafloppin]

Its amazing that games like Kane and Lynch could get a sequel but not Enslaved or Heavenly Sword.

 

[AlexiVolkov]

After failing to meet expectations at retail, the Enslaved series is finished before it could even start.

....Enslaved: Odyssey to the West sold so poorly that a sequel is out of the question.

Ninja Theory co-founder Tameem Antoniades believes "Enslaved should have done better. Right now we should have been doing a sequel and perfecting that sequel and doing what franchises do, which is get better over time."

This the attitude that I genuinely feel maybe the one downfall of this industry; that anything successful needs to be a series. This happens in no other medium; no ones eagerly awaiting the sequel to Se7en, no one want's Fight Club (the book of the film) to turn into a glob trotting adventure series, yet if anything even does remotely well in this medium we all just wait for the inevitable sequel trailer leak.

I think you are kinda missing the point with this one. While what you say does apply to quite a few crappy games that sell far more than they should, this was not that case. Too many games in fact, like this, have had potential sequels shut down before they could even start due to low sales, or just publishers who expect too much from it. They didn't want to do the sequel because the game did well, the sequel they wanted to do, died because the game didn't do good enough.

My problem is with the attitude that the devs were already wanted a sequel before the game even came out.

See I don't get why that is a problem. The devs created a game where they felt the story was worth continuing and wanted to make more. Should all games then simply be one and dones? What is wrong with wanting to have a progressing arc like a series of books?

If we were talking about your bland-o vision generic shooters that we have, then yes I agree that the clone-o-matic franchises are going too far. But to say that its a bad thing for devs to create a universe or re-imagine a book and want to do more than a single chapter, is kinda counter productive. This isn't a publisher coming out and saying, "Hey this sold well so lets make a new one every year!" This is a dev saying, "We really liked working on this game, we love the story and the fans do to so we want to continue the story." That is not bad, in fact that is great. It is just sad that the game sold so poorly that the publishers have killed the sequel before it could happen.

Fair point, but I don't think this is true of Enslaved. The game functions as a stand alone entity, I don't see how a sequel could come out of it or even why it needs one. Maybe I have a fairly romanticised view on this, but really in my mind Ninja Theory should have been focusing on a new IP whether the game succeeded or not. It just seemed a little strange that we're lamenting a sequel to something that never hinted at one (please feel free to point out if it did though, I may have missed on something).

Okay, now see this is where I agree with you. When the first one ended, as bizarrely as it did, I pretty much felt that was the end of the game. I didn't anticipate a sequel, nor do I really see where one could go without getting really creative. That being said, if the devs had something they felt was worth a sequel, then I don't mind them wanting to work on it. If the game had been wildly successful and the publisher said, MAKE ANOTHER ONE NOW!, then I would be kinda pissed. But regardless, I do agree that new IP's would be a fantastic thing for them to work on but that seems to be left to the indies anymore.

 

[tzimize]

Too bad, really loved Enslaved, would've liked to see more of it.

I did too. The only gripe I had with it is that I think they almost completely failed to make the relationship between monkey and that girl as deep as they could have. The demo was fantastic, and the tension between them, monkey being forced into submission by the weaker and tech-savvy gal...man it could have been one of the best games of all times. Instead it was just good.

 

[Ulquiorra4sama]

This the attitude that I genuinely feel maybe the one downfall of this industry; that anything successful needs to be a series. This happens in no other medium; no ones eagerly awaiting the sequel to Se7en, no one want's Fight Club (the book or the film) to turn into a glob trotting adventure series, yet if anything even does remotely well in this medium we all just wait for the inevitable sequel trailer leak.

Edit: Sorry, please note the "or" highlighted there. In the original post I misspelled it as "of" which made me sound like some weirdo who reads books based on films.

Didn't Yahtzee cover this in one of his Extra Punctuations? That we should rather be looking for the next new work of a company instead of looking for the new title from some previous work? ...or something along those lines, but you get the idea.

OT: Apparently "Enslaved" was much better recieved among the internet than it was in my immediate circle of friends. I never played it because of that, but if it's really as good as people say i might look it up sometime.